VS vervalst bewijs - en de pers doet aan zelfcensuur

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

"Herman Beun" <herman.beun at tiscali.be> schreef:
>       Ik ben een paar dagen in Tsjechië geweest en weet dus niet precies of
> onderstaand verhaal in de Nederlandse pers de aandacht heeft gekregen die
> het verdient. Ik vrees van niet, want ik heb nog niets kunnen vinden. Op

http://www.parool.nl/1047109718842.html
AMSTERDAM - De Amerikaanse en Britse beweringen dat Irak trachtte
zijn kernwapenprogramma nieuw leven in te blazen, blijken gebaseerd
op vervalste documenten. Het betreft vervalste contracten voor de
verkoop van uranium door Niger aan Irak.
[knip]

Het lijkt me dat nu wel duidelijk is dat de argumentatie van Bush en
Blair (na de tweede vervalsing) redelijk betrouwbaar beoordeeld kan
worden :).

Groet,

Cees

> CNN, dat ik de wel de hele week heb kunnen volgen, heb ik het niet gezien.
> In Duitsland is het voorpagina-nieuws - en terecht.
>
>
>       (bron: FT)
>       Niger documents fake, says ElBaradei
>       By Stephen Fidler in Washington
>       Published: March 7 2003 19:52 | Last Updated: March 7 2003 19:52
>
>
>       US and British claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger - an
> important component of their assertion that Iraq has revived its efforts to
> produce nuclear weapons - relied on fake documents, the chief nuclear
> weapons inspector said on Friday.
>
>       Mohamed ElBaradei (pictured), director-general of the International
> Atomic Energy Agency, said the documents that formed the basis for the
> allegations - that between 1999 and 2001 Niger and Iraq concluded an
> agreement over the sale of uranium - were not authentic. "We have therefore
> concluded that these specific allegations were unfounded."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>       Mr ElBaradei's presentation before the UN Security Council also cast
> doubt on the rest of the evidence that the US and UK have made public to
> back claims that Iraq tried to revive its nuclear weapons programme after
> 1998. "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no
> evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons
> programme in Iraq," he said.
>
>       But Colin Powell, US secretary of state, reminded the Security Council
> that in 1991 the IAEA had been just days away from determining that Iraq did
> not have a nuclear programme. "We soon found out otherwise," he said.
>
>       According to officials, the fake documents provided by western
> intelligence agencies consisted of a small amount of correspondence between
> government officials in the two countries. After comparing the letters with
> official documents of the Niger government, the agency soon discovered the
> forgery. Some signatures, names and letterheads, for example, did not match.
>
>       The allegation about the uranium purchase first surfaced in a UK
> government dossier published on September 24 last year about Iraq's alleged
> weapons programmes, though it did not name Niger. Niger was first named when
> the US State Department elaborated on the allegations on December 19.
>
>       Mr ElBaradei also repeated his judgment that it was "highly unlikely"
> that aluminium tubes that Iraq had tried to purchase could be redesigned for
> use in a uranium enrichment programme, as the US and Britain have alleged.
>
>       He also cast doubt on claims, made by the UK in September and expanded
> upon by Mr Powell last month, that Iraq had sought magnets and magnet
> production facilities for use in uranium enrichment.
>
>       The aluminium tube claim first appeared on September 12, in
> documentation accompanying President George W. Bush's address to the UN
> General Assembly.
>
>       That month Britain elaborated the claim, saying Iraq had tried to buy
> 60,000 such tubes, and Mr Powell drew attention last month to the high
> specification of the tubes.
>
>

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